I don't want to lay too much David Copperfield, this-is-the-story-of-my-life crap on you, but I was born in Detroit, the son of a tool and die maker.

It's highly probable, my heavily muscled friend, that you are a yo-yo dieter. (You're probably a bed wetter too, but that's the subject of another article.)

A Non-Functional Pile of Muscle! I started out in the iron game by training for football and then Olympic lifting. I competed in the latter for four years: training, eating and breathing Russian and Bulgarian!

Okay, maybe nothing on the following list of things changed my life in a profound way — the way my life changed when I walked into work on that casual Friday and saw Cy Willson dressed exactly like Xena, Warrior Princess — but most did make my life easier, healthier, or at least more enjoyable. Hopefully, some of them will do the same for your life.

Congratulations. You've succeeded where most people have failed. You've bucked the obesity trend and have lost a small mountain of fat. You feel better, you look better, and your health has greatly improved. Good for you.

The temperature hit 110 degrees in Vegas that week and the Strip was sizzling. But I wasn't complaining: the July cleavage on display was spectacular, and the mini-skirts were so short they were more like belts . God bless loose women and the lack of open container laws on Las Vegas Boulevard.

I'm not sure if it does me a damn bit of good, but I think a lot. Whether it's pondering, meditating, deliberating, contemplating, or cogitating, I do it all.

There was a time in the late 80’s and the first year or two of the 90’s when the Detroit Pistons dominated Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls.

This Tool Box series has become one of my most popular article sets to date, so why break with what's working? Here's the latest installment of this series designed to help experienced lifters fill in the blanks and learn the finer points of strength development.

A Thousand Words You're not supposed to be here. In this motel room, in this bathroom, backstage at this show. You aren't supposed to be seeing this. This private moment, this intimate setting, this unguarded emotion.

I always find it amusing when bodybuilders make fun of powerlifters and vice versa. I mean when it comes down to it, we’re all into the iron game, just different variations with different goals.

"Bodybuilding training? No way! Not for me! I’m training only for strength and function," said the huge sumbitch after deadlifting a load that was roughly equivalent to a Sherman tank.

If you're a woman and you're either going out with a bodybuilder, or worse yet, married to one, you've probably discovered that we're a little different from other men.

If you’re ready for another inflammatory and quite possibly insulting article on how we might tweak our diets to reduce the insidious nature of inflammation, read on. More muscle mass and less body fat might just be your reward. Oh, and you may want to grab a medical dictionary because this is one current and highly-referenced opus. What can we say? Get this man geeking-out and he’ll bust through the wall of ignorance like the Kool Aid Man!

Who's That Girl?! You've seen the commercial . Man or woman, you probably couldn't take your eyes off the TV. The heat. The flames. The sweat.

Different Morphologies, Different Strengths If you plan on staying sane in the iron game, you'd better have a sense of humor. For example, you might be built to excel at one particular lift and be the envy of all your peers. But just when you begin to feel pretty good about yourself, you get humbled by some lamppost who kicks your butt in another lift!

I’ve seen the magnificence of the midnight sun in Scandinavia and I’ve gazed in awe at the world from a 15,000-foot mountaintop. I’ve watched in wonder as a whale and her cub swam alongside my small sailboat and I’ve witnessed the awesome display of glaciers collapsing into the Alaskan sea. I’ve beheld the raw physical beauty of a 200-pound marlin as it skirted along the surface of the Pacific while fighting to escape my hook and I’ve seen the night sky light up from a giant meteor.